John Cena says he “ruined this for everybody” with WWE PG format change

Former WWE Champion John Cena was recently interviewed by Jimmy Traina on the “SI Media Podcast.” “The Leader Of The Cenation” talked about several professional wrestling topics such as WWE’s PG rating, why the company decided to execute the format change, and why older fans are sometimes turned off by the current product.

Cena also discussed fans liking Roman Reigns when he was a member of The Shield, however, being relentlessly booed today while being pushed as WWE’s biggest star:

“Roman has it tough. I kind of ruined this for everybody…the content, the format change did. Attitude Era was male 18 to 35. And our program still draws males 18 to 35. But we’re a PG program. Which means you’re audience is a six year old. I don’t say don’t cater to the male 18 to 35, but your audience starts at six or younger. So you have to give them essentially Shrek or Cars or the Lego Movie.

“Sometimes, 18 to 35 year old dudes don’t want to watch the Lego Movie. You have to try to push, but don’t think there’s not a second in my mind that our audience isn’t six. Our audience is so mixed that there’s never going to be a good guy that appeals to everyone. Even if it’s someone that the fans endorse and become the guy. It’s a thing where the fans are like, ‘Okay, you as a company are going with this guy? No you’re not because we get choose.’

“When Roman was with The Shield, everybody loved him. He didn’t really change much. He was soft-spoken, his actions spoken for him, he performs incredibly well. Yet there’s a giant uprising because a lot of it is, ‘You can’t tell us what to like.’ And that’s okay. It’s just tough waters to navigate as a company and it’s tough to build stars.”